Henry Balfour Gardiner (7 November 1877 – 28 June 1950) was a British musician, composer, and teacher.
He was born at
Kensington
Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London.
The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...
(London), began to play at the age of 5 and to compose at 9. Between his conventional education at
Charterhouse School
(God having given, I gave)
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public school Independent day and boarding school
, religion = Church of England
, president ...
and
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at th ...
, where he obtained only a pass degree, Gardiner was a piano student at the
Hoch Conservatory
Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium – Musikakademie was founded in Frankfurt am Main on 22 September 1878. Through the generosity of Frankfurter Joseph Hoch, who bequeathed the Conservatory one million German gold marks in his testament, a school for ...
in Frankfurt, where he was taught by
Iwan Knorr
Iwan Otto Armand Knorr (3 January 1853 – 22 January 1916) was a German composer and music teacher.
Life
A native of Gniew, he attended the Leipzig Conservatory where he studied with Ignaz Moscheles, Ernst Friedrich Richter and Carl Reinecke. I ...
and
Lazzaro Uzielli
Lazzaro Uzielli (4 February 1861 − 8 October 1943) was an Italian pianist and music educator.
Life
Born in Florence, Uzielli studied in his home town with Luigi Vannuccini und Giuseppe Buonamici, then with Ernst Rudorff in Berlin, and with ...
, who had been a pupil of
Clara Schumann
Clara Josephine Schumann (; née Wieck; 13 September 1819 – 20 May 1896) was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over the course of a ...
. He belonged to the
Frankfurt Group, a circle of composers who studied at the Hoch Conservatory in the late 1890s. With
George Gardiner (no relation) he collected folk songs in Hampshire (1905–1906),
[Purslow, F; Marrowbones, English Folk Songs from the Hammond and Gardiner Collections; London; 2007 pp xvi–xvii]
taught music briefly at
Winchester College
Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...
(1907), and composed. His works included compositions in a variety of genres, including two
symphonies
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...
(No 2 premiered at the
Proms
The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hal ...
in 1908), but many of his scores, including the symphonies, are lost and only a very limited amount of his music survives.
His best-known work ''
Evening Hymn'' (1908), a setting of the
compline
Compline ( ), also known as Complin, Night Prayer, or the Prayers at the End of the Day, is the final prayer service (or office) of the day in the Christian tradition of canonical hours, which are prayed at fixed prayer times.
The English wo ...
hymn "
Te lucis ante terminum
''Te lucis ante terminum'' (English: ''To Thee before the close of day'') is an old Latin hymn in long metre. It is the hymn at Compline in the ''Roman Breviary''.
Origin
S.-G. Pimont argued for the authorship of Ambrose of Milan. The Benedict ...
", is a lush, romantic work for eight-part choir and organ, of dense harmonies. For most of the time, it sits in four parts, though the treble, alto, tenor, and bass parts all subdivide at various points. It is considered a classic of the English choral repertoire and is still regularly performed as an
anthem
An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to short ...
at
Evensong
Evensong is a church service traditionally held near sunset focused on singing psalms and other biblical canticles. In origin, it is identical to the canonical hour of vespers. Old English speakers translated the Latin word as , which became ...
in
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
churches.
The fame of this work has overshadowed his surviving orchestral works, which include ''Overture to a Comedy'' (1906, revised 1911), the
Percy Grainger
Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who lived in the United States from 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long an ...
-like ''Shepherd Fennell's Dance'' (1911) (once a favourite at the Proms, chalking up 35 performances between 1911 and 1951), and the
Delius
Delius, photographed in 1907
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius ( 29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934), originally Fritz Delius, was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he resisted atte ...
-like ''A Berkshire Idyll'', the latter written in 1913 at Field House, Ashampstead Green in Berkshire, where he lived between 1911 and 1930. The first performance of the ''Idyll'' (along with two other unpublished pieces, ''Philomela'' and the choral setting ''April''), took place on 6 May 1955 at the Royal Festival Hall, 42 years after its completion. It was recorded in 2017 for the first time.
Also surviving are a number of short piano works and songs. There is also the one movement String Quartet in Bb major, composed in 1905 and premiered that year on 28 February by the Cathie String Quartet at the
Aeolian Hall. It has been recorded by the Tippett Quartet.
Gardiner's most important work, possibly, was his promotion of the music of contemporary British and colonial composers, particularly through a series of concerts he personally financed at
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect Thomas Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it ...
London in 1912 to 1913. The composers represented included
Arnold Bax
Sir Arnold Edward Trevor Bax, (8 November 1883 – 3 October 1953) was an English composer, poet, and author. His prolific output includes songs, choral music, chamber pieces, and solo piano works, but he is best known for his orchestral musi ...
,
Frederic Austin
Frederic William Austin (30 March 187210 April 1952) was an English baritone singer, a musical teacher and composer in the period 1905–30. He is best remembered for his restoration and production of ''The Beggar's Opera'' by John Gay and Joha ...
,
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst; 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934) was an English composer, arranger and teacher. Best known for his orchestral suite ''The Planets'', he composed many other works across a range ...
, Percy Grainger,
Roger Quilter
Roger Cuthbert Quilter (1 November 1877 – 21 September 1953) was a British composer, known particularly for his art songs. His songs, which number over a hundred, often set music to text by William Shakespeare and are a mainstay of the En ...
,
Cyril Scott
Cyril Meir Scott (27 September 1879 – 31 December 1970) was an English composer, writer, poet, and occultist. He created around four hundred musical compositions including piano, violin, cello concertos, symphonies, and operas. He also wrot ...
and
Norman O'Neill
Norman Houston O'Neill (14 March 1875 – 3 March 1934) was an English composer and conductor of Irish background who specialised largely in works for the theatre.
Life
O'Neill was born at 16 Young Street in Kensington, London, the youngest so ...
. (The last four had also studied with him at Frankfurt.) Gardiner was very generous with his personal fortune, paying for a private benefit performance of ''
The Planets
''The Planets'', Op. 32, is a seven- movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1917. In the last movement the orchestra is joined by a wordless female chorus. Each movement of the suite is name ...
'' for Holst in 1918 and purchasing
Frederick Delius
Delius, photographed in 1907
Frederick Theodore Albert Delius ( 29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934), originally Fritz Delius, was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he resisted atte ...
's house at
Grez-sur-Loing
Grez-sur-Loing (, literally ''Grez on Loing''; formerly Grès-en-Gâtinais, literally ''Grès in Gâtinais'') is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France.
Sights
* The Church of Notre-Dame et Saint-Laurent ''(Church o ...
to enable him to continue living in it at the end of his life. In the early 1920s he also became a patron of
Charles Kennedy Scott
Charles James Kennedy Osborne Scott (16 November 18762 July 1965) was an English organist and choral conductor who played an important part in developing the performance of choral and polyphonic music in England, especially of early and modern En ...
, conductor and founder of the Philharmonic Choir which was the predecessor of the present
London Philharmonic Choir
The London Philharmonic Choir (LPC) is one of the leading independent British choirs in the United Kingdom based in London. The patron is Princess Alexandra, The Hon Lady Ogilvy and Sir Mark Elder is president. The choir, comprising more than ...
.
Gardiner gave up composing in 1925 largely because he was intensely
self-critical: much of his lost music was probably destroyed by him. Thereafter, he devoted himself to a pioneering
afforestation
Afforestation is the establishment of a forest or stand of trees (forestation) in an area where there was no previous tree cover. Many government and non-governmental organizations directly engage in afforestation programs to create forests a ...
programme on his
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...
pig farm. He died in hospital in
Salisbury
Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath.
Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...
after suffering a stroke.
He was the great-uncle of the conductor Sir
John Eliot Gardiner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner (born 20 April 1943) is an English conductor, particularly known for his performances of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Life and career
Born in Fontmell Magna, Dorset, son of Rolf Gardiner and Marabel Hodgkin, Gard ...
.
See also
*
Sir Alan Henderson Gardiner (Egyptologist), his brother
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gardiner, Balfour
1877 births
1950 deaths
English composers
English conductors (music)
British male conductors (music)
Alumni of New College, Oxford
English folk-song collectors
Hoch Conservatory alumni
People educated at Charterhouse School
Pupils of Iwan Knorr